On the National Guardsmen Shooting and Its Aftermath

[Note: “Guardsmen” is considered a gender-neutral term by the military, and will be so used here.]

With all of the recent controversy regarding the Trump Administration’s repeated striking of an allegedly drug-running boat in the South Caribbean Sea on September 2, the shootings of National Guardsmen U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, in Washington, D.C. on the day before Thanksgiving have more or less dropped off the news feeds I see. All are aware that Specialist Beckstrom has died. As this is typed, Sgt. Wolfe is reportedly improving despite grievous wounds.

I haven’t forgotten. These shootings continue to resonate with me with a force that I now generally only feel as deeply – a sad reflection of the desensitization seeping into me in our violence-riven society — when hearing of school shootings.

But I’m not only heartbroken. I’m livid.

Because it was so unnecessary. Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe didn’t have to be there. They could have been home celebrating Thanksgiving with their families.

I consider two men responsible for their deaths: Afghani Refugee Rahmanullah Lakanwal; and President Donald Trump.

Make no mistake: Mr. Lakanwal – given the apparently indisputable evidence that he was the perpetrator — pulled the trigger. It makes no difference that he may have saved American lives through his service in Afghanistan, or that he and some similarly-situated Afghanis may not have received as much federal assimilation assistance upon arrival here as might have been preferable, or that he fell prey to radicalization after arriving in this country, or noting any other explanation some rationalizer might attempt to dream up. He killed Specialist Beckstrom. He irrevocably altered Sgt. Wolfe’s life. Assuming that he is found guilty of the shootings after a fair trial according him all the rights to which he is entitled under the United States Constitution, Mr. Lakanwal deserves whatever sentence he receives; if the death penalty is legally rendered, I won’t lose any sleep over it.

That said, I was surprised to see Administration officials so quickly embrace the phrase, “targeted shooting,” to describe Mr. Lakanwal’s act – not because it wasn’t accurate, but because it so clearly was – and as such, a damning indictment of Mr. Trump. Under any reasonable assessment, National Guardsmen – tragically for them, in the persons of Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe – were Mr. Lakanwal’s targets. Given the President’s ballyhooed deployment of National Guard to our nation’s capital, media reports of the areas they patrolled, and some simple reconnaissance, any unbalanced individual with much less than Mr. Lakanwal’s military background could easily project when and where Guardsmen would be. These two Guardsmen, walking at midday on a highly-traveled city street blocks from the White House with no indication of imminent danger, were no match for someone with Mr. Lakanwal’s training and experience.

Mr. Lakanwal simply shot the targets set up for him by Donald Trump.

Too harsh, you say? Consider the untaken alternatives: Mr. Lakanwal undoubtedly had hundreds of people in sight between the time he set out that day and the time he opened fire on the Guardsmen. One might surmise that at some point before the incident he had one or more D.C. police officers within easy range, who would have been no more prepared for his sudden assault than the Guardsmen were. He passed them all up to target members of the American military — who were only on that street because they were ordered to take part in what the Trump Administration has called “a crackdown on crime” – i.e., to participate in a quintessentially local law enforcement activity outside their traditional mission as part of an Administration public relations stunt which obviously has as its primary purposes the intimidation of its political opponents and scoring propaganda points with its gullible MAGA base.

So, what of this sacrifice of these two young people who had volunteered to serve their country?

Well, that’s Show Biz.

I would wager that in stationing Guardsmen in “Blue Cities” – largely against the wishes of local officials — Mr. Trump has been hoping for an incident in which cameras caught protestors behaving aggressively toward Guardsmen. I do not believe that he wanted or intended as tragic a result as has occurred – any more than a tavern patron who has had too many drinks wants or intends any automobile accident deaths that s/he ultimately causes – but anyone with the sense God gave a goose could anticipate that what did happen, might happen. In fact, on November 26^th,the New York Times quoted a California National Guardsman indicating, “he and his commanders worried that [their assignment to patrol Los Angeles] ‘increased our risk of us shooting civilians or civilians taking shots at us.’” In the same piece, the Times recorded that last August, Guard commanders involved in its Capital deployments issued communications “… warn[ng] that troops were in a ‘heightened threat environment’ … that ‘nefarious threat actors engaging in grievance based violence, and those inspired by foreign terrorist organizations’ might view the mission ‘as a target of opportunity’ … and that the mission ‘presents an opportunity for criminals, violent extremists, issue motivated groups and lone actors to advance their interests.’” The inherent risk was blatantly obvious. The President and his cohort just didn’t, and don’t, give a damn.

In the days after the incident, I saw reports indicating:

Item: Trump Administration claimed that Mr. Lakanwal was never vetted by the Biden Administration before being allowed to enter the country. This has now been debunked by so many sources – including sources that indicate that Mr. Lakanwal’s latest clearance came this spring, from the Trump Administration – that I don’t know if the Regime is still spouting this; of course, anything is possible from an organization that loudly continued to repeat a uniformly-debunked lie about Springfield, OH, Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs.

Item: The Trump Administration has halted the processing of immigration requests from anyone from Afghanistan. It’s not unreasonable to assume that many of these applicants are seeking refuge after aiding our efforts against the Taliban. I have seen reports that since returning to power, the Taliban has brutally persecuted those Afghanis suspected of assisting us. The Trump Administration halt is a monstrous overreaction to the evil act of one radicalized Afghani, which could well have fatal consequences for thousands of our Afghani associates ultimately abandoned as an outcome of a wrongheaded withdrawal agreement negotiated by the first Trump Administration.

Item: The Trump administration vowed to conduct a sweeping re-examination of “every Green Card” held not only by all Afghanis already admitted to our country but also those held by nationals from almost a score of other Middle Eastern, African and South American countries which the Regime has subjected to a travel ban. I know – I’m wasting my typing and your eyesight to point out that there is no logical link between a tragically-radicalized Afghani and thousands of other immigrants from across the world legally here under other programs. Given the “Ready, Fire, Aim,” Nazi Sturmabteilung approach the Regime has taken to immigration enforcement, perhaps thousands of unquestionably innocent people will be caught up in this surge. To state the obvious: if it proceeds with such an examination, the Regime will simply have used this incident as a pretext for indulging its racial, religious, and political biases.

Item: That the Trump Administration is looking into the possibility of deporting Mr. Lakanwal’s family. (Any competent criminal investigation will certainly explore whether others were aware of or complicit in Mr. Lakanwal’s act. If there is evidence of others’ culpability, either within or outside Mr. Lakanwal’s family, those whose guilt can be established should be criminally tried and appropriately sentenced, not deported.) Absent sufficient evidence of culpability of specific members of Mr. Lakanwal’s family members, deporting the innocents as a consequence of this incident is every bit as conceptually constitutionally sound as, say … holding Mr. Trump’s wife and children liable for the $88 million he owes E. Jean Carroll for sexual assault and defamation.

These measures, if carried out, smack of fascism – demonizing “others” for political gain with literally no factual foundation.

Are we done? Not quite yet. Let’s consider a potentially even more dire consequence of the assault upon Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe: that patrolling Guardsmen begin to view those walking around them as potential enemies – an approach necessary in foreign war zones, but frighteningly fraught on American soil (while at the same time seemingly becoming understandable). (If you were a Guardsman, wouldn’t this incident make you view those moving around you with greater suspicion?) Recall that the Times piece cited above quoted a Guardsman observing that the deployments increased the “risk of us shooting civilians.”

Let’s end this overly-long rant with the most idiotic irony: Mr. Trump’s announcement that given the shooting, he intends to deploy an additional 500 National Guardsmen to D.C. One just has to sit back, pause, and blink before continuing. As noted above, the pretext for this Administration grandstand is a “crackdown” on what let’s call, for purposes of this note, “commonplace” crime in D.C. If the shooting of Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe was indeed a shooting targeted at U.S. military – a rare point of agreement between the Noise and the Regime – it wasn’t even the type of “crime” that the deployment was intended to address. Not only that: I have seen reports that prior to embarking on his mission, Mr. Lakanwal was living in Washington state, not D.C. – so he could not conceivably even have been among the D.C. criminal element that Mr. Trump was intending to confront through the deployment. If Guardsmen hadn’t been in D.C., there certainly wouldn’t have been as many or arguably as vulnerable military targets in the city as Mr. Trump’s order provided to Mr. Lakanwal. Because of the President’s order, Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe were in place to be shot while taking part in maneuvers beyond the proper military purview by a malign operator who wasn’t covered by the Regime’s expressed mission. So, explain to me the logic of adding 500 additional targets to an already target-rich environment for deranged individuals in our gun-obsessed environment because of a heinous incident that wasn’t within the mission’s scope committed by somebody who wasn’t from D.C.

On the day they were shot, Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe’s ages averaged to 22 – which, in turn, is only half of the average age of our three children. These two young victims enlisted to serve their country – something I never did. They had their whole lives in front of them. They deserved a Commander in Chief worthy of them. Theirs, and perhaps the lives of thousands of innocent immigrants, have been irrevocably altered — in sacrifice to a propaganda stunt.

There is an episode of The West Wing in which Martin Sheen’s fictional President Bartlet makes a wrong decision, and a number of U.S. service members are killed as a result. The episode – among the most poignant in a series that all who read these notes know that I consider the best television program in history – ends with Mr. Sheen’s Bartlet standing on the tarmac at the military airport where the deceased service members’ bodies have been flown back to the states. Mr. Sheen is a great actor, and even without seeing the episode one can imagine the agony he shows as Bartlet as the caskets, draped in flags, are solemnly marched, one by one, by pristinely-uniformed, white-gloved honor guards, from the aircraft to where the President stands, with a brief pause in front of him, and then moved to a waiting inner chamber.

Mr. Trump is a father. I wonder: Does he ever think about the damage and destruction he has done to so many lives and careers with his deranged, malicious, shock-jock, made-for-TV machinations? In what is probably the most awful suggestion I have ever made about Mr. Trump in all the years I have been posting in these pages: He doesn’t.

I pray that Specialist Beckstrom can rest in peace.

On Blowing Up Boats

What with Holiday preparations, general affairs (we’ve had A LOT of snow early in the winter in Madison), and working on another, still-unfinished post, I haven’t previously expounded – perhaps “ranted” would be a more apt description — on President Donald Trump’s Administration’s blowing up of allegedly drug-running boats in international waters. What has caused me to take your time here is an observation that seems to me to be the most critical facet – and potentially the most supportive aspect for the preservation of our democracy – of the possible ramifications of the Regime’s launching of four strikes on a boat on September 2, 2025. (I believe that it is undisputed that two occupants of the boat survived the first strike, but were killed in the second. Two subsequent strikes – apparently to completely obliterate the vessel itself – followed.) I feel it is appropriate to note that potentially supportive aspect here because it occurred to me before I saw any media commentator make it.

However, let’s first – as a client of mine used to say decades ago when reviewing the progress of an ongoing negotiation – review the bidding regarding these operations.

The Administration claims that its actions are justified because we are at “war” with “narco-terrorists.” Note how skillfully Mr. Trump and his minions have moved the goal posts: it seems that the majority of commentators feel obligated to start their commentaries regarding these actions with the proviso, “assuming we are at war.” These talking heads might as well say, “Well, assuming Siamese cats are tigers …” The Administration’s whole premise is absurd. [The justification for the last two strikes on the boat on September 2 makes one blink: “We had to make sure that the boat could no longer be used [as an instrument of war] against us.” What? Relative to our U.S. Naval strength, the boat was a canoe. This is akin to calling a contest between the Los Angeles Dodgers and a West Madison Little League team, “a baseball game.” We are not at war.

Next. The United States certainly has the right to use legitimate means to limit illicit drug smuggling into our country. These Regime activities glaringly fail the legitimacy test. First, as far as I know, no satisfactory evidence has been given that any specific struck boat was actually carrying drugs. One of the primary premises of this nation is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Where did that go? U.S. KY Sen. Rand Paul has noted statistics indicating that over the years our U.S. Coast Guard interceptions of suspected trafficking vessels have failed to discover drugs 25% of the time – from which one could infer that perhaps 20 of the 80 killed in these strikes have been innocent. [I heard one pundit suggest a particularly sad nuance: that cartels may be requiring otherwise law-abiding individuals to undertake drug runs upon threat that their loved ones will otherwise be tortured or killed. (Such a scenario seems increasingly credible given the cartels’ now-understandable concern about the risk that the Regime’s actions pose to their personnel.) Although these coerced individuals would, if apprehended, be guilty of drug smuggling, under such pressure either you or I would undertake these missions.] Second, subject to your correction, I do not believe that drug trafficking offenses are generally characterized as capital crimes under U.S. law. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are bullies who clearly just enjoy beating up on the weak and pandering their manhood to the gullible MAGA base. Whether those operating these struck boats have been guilty or innocent, with every strike the Regime is arguably in violation of international law.

Let’s step back a minute. I can’t resist.

As all who care are aware, in November six Congressional Democrats with military or national security backgrounds released a video in which they advised our current members of the military that they had the right to disobey “unlawful orders.” Mr. Trump quickly fired back with posts on his social network proclaiming that the members’ behavior was “seditious behavior, punishable by death,” indicated that these members should be arrested and tried, and forwarded a post asserting that the members should be hanged. Aside from the fact that Mr. Trump’s accusations were wholly baseless, the depth of irony of such declarations, coming from a man who lied about losing an election and incited a seditious attack on our nation’s Capitol, is literally nauseating.

As this is typed, Messrs. Trump and Hegseth are in the process of shifting all of the responsibility for the second strike on the boat in the September 2 incident — the strike that killed the two individuals who survived the first strike – to Adm. Frank Bradley (who is currently reported to have ordered the second strike after Mr. Hegseth, apparently undisputedly, had given the order to “Kill Them All” before the first strike) – while disingenuously appearing to support the Admiral’s action. Such is obviously a despicable abdication of responsibility. Former President Harry Truman – who coined our most pithy, well-known description of presidential responsibility, “The Buck Stops Here” – must be rolling over in his grave. (Of course, Mr. Truman, a man of rectitude, has probably already figuratively drilled at least halfway to China beneath his gravestone throughout the Trump presidencies; this latest outrage has probably just made him spin a little faster.)

I haven’t done any research on Adm. Bradley; I have no idea whether he was by nature a willing participant in this operation or merely acting as a reluctantly-obedient subordinate when he ordered the second strike (if he indeed did). If there is any substance to the opinions being voiced by military legal experts seemingly across the political media spectrum – and even accepting the baseless premise that we are at war with drug cartels (see; even I’m doing it 😉) – there may well be grounds warranting the Admiral’s placement under court martial for a war crime (as well as the personnel who actually executed the strike). A vital reminder: all the evidence is almost certainly not yet in, and the Admiral is scheduled to meet with members of Congress today in confidential sessions. That said, if he and his involved subordinates do suffer severe consequences for the actions they took on September 2 – while at the same time the Trump Administration seeks to exonerate Mr. Hegseth and distance Mr. Trump from the incident – I would submit that the incident potentially provides a silver – nay, gold – lining for the preservation of our democracy: by their unscrupulous, gutless behavior, Messrs. Trump and Hegseth will have alienated the entire American military.

If in the future Mr. Trump or Mr. Hegseth orders military personnel to move against peaceful American protestors – recall that Mark Esper, the last Secretary of Defense in the first Trump Administration, related in his memoir, A Sacred Oath, that when demonstrators protested in Washington, D.C., after the murder of George Floyd, Mr. Trump asked authorities, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” — do you think they’ll obey the order? Would you?

The most instructive aspect of this incident will be how Mr. Trump reacts. It was clear from the day Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Hegseth that he was an atrociously stupid choice as Secretary of Defense. However, when challenged, the President ALWAYS doubles down, considers admission of mistake an indication of weakness, pushes through – and with his core supporters, it has worked for the last decade. I wonder how such an approach will work with the military, which has maintained a fiercely nonpartisan tradition – while being acutely aware of its own position and prerogatives –throughout this country’s existence. I was never in the military, so anything I venture is obviously the broadest speculation; but one can question how much support Mr. Trump will retain with the military if he reflexively clings to and protects Mr. Hegseth.

You can’t be a dictator without controlling your citizenry. You can’t control your citizenry without a military that obeys you.

I am well aware that my notes of optimism in recent posts are no more than slivers of reassurance in an era of tragedy. Still, they’re better than nothing.

Stay well – and for those in the north, stay warm. 😊

The Race is On

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

Chinese General and Philosopher Sun Tzu (544 BC – 496 BC); The Art of War

I think we can confidently assume that President Donald Trump has never heard of Sun Tzu, but I would venture that a number of his strategists have.

The race to preserve the American way of life is beginning in earnest.

I have mentioned a couple of times in these pages since Mr. Trump was reelected that I presumed that Mr. Trump and his adherents recognized that on their best day, they only had the support of half of the American public, and understood that they needed to employ the Nazi model of the 1930s to quickly consolidate their control of our country if they were going to be able to reshape it to their vision. They have certainly done so. An exhaustive list of their nondemocratic activities since taking office would probably consume more life space that either of us have remaining, so let’s limit ourselves to just a few:

Deploying National Guard troops on the streets of Los Angeles and Chicago over the objections of local authorities, seeking to deploy them in Portland, OR (again, over the objections of local authorities), and threatening New York and other cities whose citizens clearly oppose the Trump Regime. (Add to that the Regime’s recent assemblage of all senior military officers, in which Mr. Trump’s vaguely referred to use of our active military in American cities. This was arguably intended to intimidate reluctant officers; these men and women are understandably worried about their careers like everyone else.)

Promiscuously employing ICE agents across the country. The incidents of ICE agents’ overzealous and at times unwarranted actions are too numerous to mention. I speculated in a post after Mr. Trump pardoned the January 6, 2021, insurrectionists that the pardoned Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers might provide the President his own private Sturmabteilung (the “SA”; Adolf Hitler’s Brownshirts, who terrorized Nazi opponents before he took power). ICE is arguably edging toward being the Regime’s quasi-legal Sturmabteilung. (ICE agents were recently walking the streets of Madison, WI. Madison’s “illegal” Latino population cannot be significant by nationwide standards; however, since Madison is the heart of anti-Trump sentiment in swing state Wisconsin, the Administration was laying a predicate.)

Blowing up small boats in international waters. There has been, of course, no evidence presented that any of these boats were carrying illegal drugs headed for the United States. The notion that we are fighting a “war” which justifies American use of deadly force without adjudication is absurd. This is rogue nation murder.

The Administration’s recently-commenced prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James by some pretty former lackey lawyer of Mr. Trump’s for alleged crimes that career federal prosecutors were unwilling to pursue. The Regime isn’t trying to hide its attempt to seek retribution against its enemies; it is reveling in it. That is the point.

We don’t need to go back over the inaction of gutless Congressional Republicans, the complicity of the Administration’s Supreme Court, the Regime’s attempt to intimidate powerful universities that oppose it, and MAGA-controlled state legislatures’ current mid-cycle redistricting efforts to stave off the Administration’s otherwise historically seemingly almost certain loss of control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January, 2026.

Given Mr. Trump’s obvious dictatorial inclinations, all of these could be predicted. What I have found yet more instructive is Mr. Trump’s approach to the government shutdown.

In a post a few weeks ago, I asserted that forcing a government shutdown was an ill-conceived strategy for Democrats in their battle for public opinion because “… the next time that Americans ultimately blame a government shutdown on the party in power … will be the first time.” If reported polls are accurate, I have so far been wrong (I bet you find that shocking 😊); Democrats have been holding their own. Having been wrong has obviously never deterred me from offering further opinions, so I will venture this: Democrats have found such support among a wide swath of the Americans not only because their position against skyrocketing health care premiums has “broken through” to the public but because Mr. Trump’s marginal 2024 voters – the ones that put him over the top – have become uneasy with the Administration’s autocratic excesses, not what they expected (despite Mr. Trump’s clear campaign rhetoric; we always have to give him that) or wanted.

Mr. Trump is the savviest reader and manipulator of public opinion in our generation. He can read the polls. Account after account in the media has indicated that the increase in Affordable Care Act premiums and loss of Medicaid benefits projected to be wrought by his markedly unpopular “Big Beautiful Bill (the ‘BBB’)” will disproportionately adversely impact his voters. At the same time, he is so much better at messaging than the Democrats that on any day, he could sweep in, tell his lickspittle Congressional Republicans to support the legislative measures Democrats want, and claim that he brokered the peace. He clearly can’t give a damn about any increase to our federal deficit resulting from the Democrats’ measure; even his staunchest supporters would have to concede that he doesn’t care about debt. And a year from now, his gullible supporters won’t recall that their access to affordable health care was preserved by the Democrats’ stand.

So why doesn’t he deal?

I would submit that it is because his priority is consolidation of power, not policy or even popularity within his base. I’ll venture that he sees this as a pivotal moment; if Democrats are perceived – not among hardcore MAGAs, but among independents – to have scored a victory, he will be weakened when he has not yet fully taken control of the American populace. He is out to crush the opposition at this moment, when his autocratic measures are confronting increasing discontent in a citizenry that for 250 years has been accustomed to think and speak for itself.

All who read these notes are aware that we regularly tune in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and that my inclinations frequently align with the show’s host, former U.S. FL Rep. Joe Scarborough. That said, I have recently been raising an eyebrow at Mr. Scarborough’s observations about the ultimate political ramifications of the Trump Regime’s increasingly autocratic measures; his comments have frequently been in the vein, “What goes around comes around; they should be worried about the next time, when Democrats take control of the White House and Congress.” My attitude is different, formed from the approach that I took toward negotiating commercial arrangements for almost 40 years: assume that the other guy (in a genderless sense, of course 😉) is at least as bright as you are, and knows at least as much as you do. So if s/he’s acting in a way that seems contrary to his/her interest, what does s/he know that you’re not factoring in?

I would suggest that the answer is straightforward, certainly supported by Regime actions during its first nine months seemingly contrary to its own political popularity: MAGAs don’t intend to let it “come around,” or that there will be “a next time.” To suggest otherwise defies what is right before our eyes. Too many have spent too much of the last decade underestimating Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

The next federal midterm elections will be held on November 3, 2026, obviously just a little over a year distant. When Mr. Trump was reelected, I thought that the struggle for the American way of life might be put off until the 2028 presidential election; now I think the upcoming election is the key.

Remember Sun Tzu. While all demonstrations against the Regime must be peaceful – to do otherwise plays into its hands – don’t be subdued. Hopefully, you will have the opportunity to participate in a NO KINGS rally today. Although we have seen any number of truly witty signs over the last nine months, I plan to carry the ultimate symbol of protest and freedom – an American flag.

Disparate Impressions

First, something I should have added to the recent post relating to the passing of former Wall Street Journal Personal Financial Columnist Jonathan Clements: although Vanguard founder John Bogle, legendary investor Warren Buffett, and Mr. Clements all believe/ed that the American stock market would rise and individuals would reap satisfactory returns over the long run by investing in no-load, low-cost index funds tracking the markets, Mr. Buffett has famously said that he has no idea what the stock market will do tomorrow, and Messrs. Bogle and Clements would have undoubtedly agreed. Accordingly, any funds one requires for an impending purchase should be safely harbored until spent in a federally-insured cash account. There – my Irish Catholic conscience is clear (at least on this score 😉).

It appears that President Donald Trump is brokering an end to the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Whether any settlement will last – at the time this is typed, the shooting reportedly continues, and Middle Easterners have been warring for as close to forever as you can get in this finite existence – Mr. Trump may be achieving what I consider the most important immediate priority relating to the conflict: ending the brutal slaughter of Palestinians, particularly children. Although Israel’s activities were obviously precipitated by the Hamas attack, its response has been savagely disproportionate. This is no reflection on the Israeli people, but on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who should be in an international jail for life. Although I am not the first to say this, I acknowledge that Mr. Trump’s intervention was pivotal. The “only Nixon could go to China” analogy is grossly overused, but it is accurate here. The leaders of the cooperating Arab nations trust him because he thinks like they do. Although the objective terms of the announced pact overwhelmingly favor Israel, Mr. Netanyahu could have suspended his military operation in Gaza long ago had he wished to do so. When Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Netanyahu, as he reportedly did, to cease his military assault, Mr. Netanyahu was undoubtedly mindful that Mr. Trump was the only American president since the founding of Israel who could if he chose cut off aid to Israel and get away with it politically.

Putting aside the moral dimensions and looking at the assassination of MAGA Activist Charlie Kirk in cold political terms, it is arguable that the only things that the deranged young man who assassinated Mr. Kirk achieved through his heinous act was to drive all reference to Mr. Trump’s relationship with convicted Child Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein – the one area in which Mr. Trump had seemingly been vulnerable with his MAGA base – out of the media consciousness, and to provide Mr. Trump and his MAGA minions a pretext upon which to more aggressively harass and stifle the free speech of Mr. Trump’s critics.

With the return of the NFL season, I have been spending more time with sports media. This may just now be registering with me, but growing up in a family plagued by addiction – albeit a different one — I am appalled at the emphasis placed on gambling in these telecasts. I have noted repeated ads by FanDuel, by DraftKings, by BetMGM, am aware that there are many other online betting organizations, and hear plenty of betting talk among the commentators. So let’s take a bunch of immature, unmoored, desperate, mostly impecunious, mostly male young Americans and constantly wave the temptation to bet in their faces, make it easy to bet, make it look easy to win, and see what happens. I have not read the 2018 Supreme Court decision that enabled widespread online sports gambling and concede that this decision is not the most injurious to the American way of life that the Court has or will issue, but that doesn’t mean that easy-does-it online sports betting hasn’t and won’t lead to the ruination of quite a few (disproportionately young) lives.

I am disgusted with justifications frequently put forth to defend those Congressional Republicans who allegedly deplore Mr. Trump’s policies – and him – behind closed doors, but through their subservience enable Administration activities. Those seeking to rationalize these Republicans’ behaviors note that these officeholders fear being “primaried” by other MAGAs professing greater fealty to Mr. Trump, and/or that they fear literal physical retribution against themselves or their families if they don’t adhere to the MAGA line. I don’t buy it. These Republicans — if such do exist — are in the Congress of the United States. Nobody made them run for Congress. Under the Constitution, they each get a vote as to whether the United States should declare war on another nation – and if they so vote, thousands of military families, whether or not they agree with the declaration, will find loved ones in harm’s way. So these gutless Republicans fear losing a seat in Congress? As to the fear of physical retribution, they should, given the responsibility they have voluntarily chosen, be placing their own physical safety below that which they consider good for the nation and their constituents. While all can sympathize with a member’s concern for the wellbeing of his/her family, my reaction here is: send your family to live where they cannot be easily located by MAGA zealots while you finish out your term, announce that you are stepping down at the end of your term, and then do what you believe is right during the remainder of your term. If you can’t do that, take the simpler approach, and resign right now. Grow a … er … spine. You’re not in high school, the frat, or the sorority any more.

Enough impressions for one note. Nationwide NO KINGS rallies are scheduled for Saturday, October 18. Judging by the national website, there will be one near you, no matter where you are. If you plan to participate, anticipate that ICE or other Administration agents will establish a presence. STAY PEACEFUL. NEITHER PROVOKE, NOR BE PROVOKED. In the meantime, enjoy the fall weekend upon us.

The Horns of a Dilemma

“It is an admirable dilemma. I have rarely seen one with so many horns and all of them so sharp.”

The fictional detective Nero Wolfe; Rex Stout; Fer-de-Lance

As all who care are aware, President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met on Friday in Alaska – without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – to discuss a resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict precipitated by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Trump went in declaring that his primary goal was to obtain a ceasefire; such was not obtained. It was clear from the video of Mr. Trump’s fawning greeting to Putin that nothing positive would be achieved. When the meeting ended – with an uncharacteristic acknowledgement by Mr. Trump that he and Putin had failed to reach any agreement – I actually felt relief. Since I had expected nothing good to come from the meeting, I initially considered it a victory that Mr. Trump seemingly hadn’t done anything to worsen the Ukrainian cause.

Silly me. I understand that Mr. Trump has now, contrary to his position before the Alaska meeting and that of Ukraine and other NATO nations, abandoned his calls for a ceasefire – so Ukrainian civilians will continue to be killed by Russian missiles – and is instead seeking to persuade Mr. Zelensky to agree to Putin’s demands for Ukraine to cede certain Ukrainian territory to Russia — including some territory Russia doesn’t now even militarily control – in return for Putin’s written promise not to attack Ukraine or any European country again. Such is absurd. Not even the most gullible MAGA – save the President himself – would believe Putin’s promises.

Although I may be grasping at straws, the only heartening report I have heard about recent developments is that at least NATO and European leaders, who obviously understand the precariousness of the situation not only for Ukraine but for their own nations if Mr. Trump capitulates to Putin, are going to join Mr. Zelensky in Washington today as he meets with Mr. Trump. It will be psychologically much more difficult for Mr. Trump – who, like any bully, shrinks from conflict when he does not have overwhelming advantage – to abandon Mr. Zelensky and Ukraine in the face of united European opposition.

We all know what should happen to resolve the conflict. (Well, what should happen from a pragmatic standpoint. What should happen from a moral standpoint is that Putin and his cohort spend the rest of their lives in an international prison for war crimes, with Russia paying reparations to the families of those killed or injured through Russian aggression and for the restoration of Ukrainian infrastructure.) You are familiar enough with the map of conflict that a depiction need not be displayed here (even if I had the technological acumen to do so 😉 ). I would suggest that from a practical perspective, the following components might form the basis for a settlement (I’m undoubtedly missing a number; feel free to comment):

Russia keeps the Ukrainian territory it currently controls, and Ukraine recognizes these lands, Crimea and the other Ukrainian territory taken by Russia in 2014, as Russian territory.
Russia recognizes Ukrainian sovereignty and renounces all claim to Ukrainian territory not within the territories ceded to the Russians.
All Ukrainians (particularly including children) and all prisoners of war on both sides are immediately exchanged.
Establishment of a border zone similar that maintained by Finland and the Baltic States on their Russian borders, to be initially policed by a United Nations peacekeepers.
For a period of one year following the date of the settlement, any residents of the conceded-Russian territories who wish to move to Ukraine can freely do so; any residents living in the Ukrainian territory recognized by Russia that wish to move to Russia can freely do so. The ability for such residents to freely elect such a choice is also to be monitored by the UN.
Ukraine is granted immediate admission to NATO and to the European Union, with it thereby assuming all the responsibilities and receiving all the security guarantees of every other NATO member. It is specifically declared that any attempt by Russia to hinder Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea will be considered an offensive action against NATO.
The U.S. and the E.U. agree to lift their sanctions against Russia.
Russia and Ukraine release all claims for reparations against the other.

The above can be achieved – and can only be achieved – through American as well as European dedication of the military and financial support to Ukraine sufficient to convince Putin that his brutal invasion has no greater hope of success than that he has already achieved. Obviously, such American dedication will not occur while Mr. Trump is President of the United States. I understand why the European leaders feel they have no choice but to coddle and placate this man in order to protect Western democracies and their own people, but it turns my stomach to watch, and suspect that it makes some of them privately want to vomit.

[An aside: I don’t know why leading Democrats aren’t denouncing any capitulation by Mr. Trump to Putin with a simple message: “If Ukraine falls, it will be Trump who lost Ukraine.” Repeating endlessly: “It will be Trump who lost Ukraine.” That is the kind of message that “breaks through” in the public consciousness that MAGAs are great at, and that Democrats (there is no kinder way to put it) suck at. (I’d normally like to see former President Barack Obama make the case, but since he took no meaningful action when Putin took Crimea in 2014, Mr. Obama is, let’s say, a wee bit out of position.)]

From the time Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 until the present – from the day Mr. Zelensky responded to an offer of safe passage for him and his family out of his country with the reply – apocryphal or not — “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride” – the defense of Ukraine has rested on his shoulders, on his steadfastness. Anyone with any sense has realized that given his people’s sacrifices, while the struggle continues Mr. Zelensky cannot signal any willingness to give any concessions to the Russians unless Ukraine – what remains of it – is admitted to NATO; if he did, his people’s morale would collapse. Any lesser security guarantee is worthless. (I’m aware that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said over the weekend, “The United States is potentially prepared to be able to give Article 5 security guarantees, but not from NATO — directly from the United States and other European countries.” Mr. Witkoff’s representation sounds good; but recall that in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia agreed that if Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons – which it did – they would respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and existing borders, and refrain from the use of force against Ukraine. With that history, is it reasonable for Mr. Zelensky to trust any security assurances he receives that leave Ukraine outside the parameters of the NATO alliance? Would you?)

I see an approaching dilemma for Mr. Zelensky: Mr. Trump will seize upon any concession made by Putin as a way to claim a public relations triumph. Mr. Zelensky will recognize that Putin’s empty gesture affords no safeguards for his nation, and that any agreement to it by Ukraine will inevitably result in Russia’s annexation of Ukraine. At the same time, Mr. Zelensky will also recognize that offending Mr. Trump – for example, expressing doubt that Mr. Trump, no matter what he says now, will commit American forces to defend Ukraine if Russia reinstitutes hostilities — will almost certainly cause Mr. Trump to blame Ukraine for the continuation of hostilities and angrily withdraw American aid from Ukraine. Most military observers opine that any such withdrawal — no matter how robust the assistance of the European NATO nations – will ultimately enable Russia, through its continued inexorable brutal slaughter of Ukraine’s civilians and soldiers, to annex Ukraine.

I suspect that Mr. Zelensky’s and his aides’ response to any empty offer by Putin will be similar to that expressed by Winston Churchill in May, 1940, as Britain faced the Nazi Wehrmacht alone: “[L]et it end only when each of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.” That said, on that occasion Mr. Churchill wasn’t addressing the British people, but other government officials. Does one knowingly sentence thousands more of one’s own people, including thousands of children, to die in what will appear a hopeless battle?

I can think of no dilemma with horns as sharp as that which Mr. Zelensky and his advisors could soon be confronting.

We’ll see what happens. Let us pray for the best.

Focusing My Antipathy

It might appear from your side of the screen that I have contributed little to these pages in recent months, but not from this side. My document store is cluttered with any number of posts begun but abandoned. My reticence has arisen from the realization that my antipathy for Mr. Trump’s behavior has so colored my perspective on our political dynamic that figuratively standing back a bit to attempt to maintain a broader perspective has been the appropriate approach for me. I literally fast forward by his comments and those of his spokespeople whenever they come up on TV. I don’t believe a word they have to say.

To what do I attribute my deep emotions regarding the President’s actions? It is not his policy choices. Make no mistake: I consider Mr. Trump’s and his MAGA Administration’s approaches on taxes, tariffs, Medicaid, the budget deficit and the federal debt, the environment, science, education, NATO, Ukraine/Russia specifically, immigration — and probably ten other issues we could name if we took a minute — to be substantively idiotic. But perhaps because of my legal training, I don’t take substantive differences to heart, so Mr. Trump’s substantive positions, as sad and counterproductive to our nation’s long-term wellbeing as they are, warrant vigorous debate but don’t strike a visceral cord within me.

What I find distressing is that Mr. Trump’s abhorrent past actions are seemingly fading from the collective American consciousness – like they never happened. He’s lied them away.

They haven’t faded for me.

I trace my visceral feelings about his behaviors to these instances:

His traitorous behavior. He lied, and continues to deny, his loss in the 2020 presidential election. With millions of dollars at his disposal, he lost about 60 lawsuits in swing states challenging former President Joe Biden’s victory. That election was unquestionably close; but to use a trite sports analogy, during the World Series they have about six cameras covering first base from every angle. If the 2020 election is imagined as Mr. Trump running down the first base line, all six cameras would have shown that the ball hit the first baseman’s glove just before Mr. Trump’s foot hit the bag. He was out. It was close, but he was out. His unwillingness to admit it to this day has groundlessly and execrably undermined the Americans’ confidence in our voting processes, the foundation of our system of government. The fact that anybody with a lick of sense should have been able to see through his lies – and millions haven’t – doesn’t excuse his behavior.

His incitement of an insurrection. You saw his speech on January 6, 2021. You saw the result. Calling it a lovefest doesn’t make it one. The attack on the Capitol was an insurrection – an attempted coup – which came within a hair’s breadth of succeeding. Mr. Trump should be in jail, not in the White House. Ditto the comment above regarding anybody with a lick of sense.

His dictatorial behavior. Some of our most renowned presidents have exercised broad presidential power, some skating to or over the limits of presidential power drawn in the Constitution. That said, as far as I’m aware, of our presidents only Mr. Trump – save perhaps President Abraham Lincoln, who had ample reason to call out southern secessionists – has referred to other Americans as “Enemies of the People” – a phrase used by Nazi Propagandist Joseph Goebbels against the Jews, Russian Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin during his Great Purge, and Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong during his Cultural Revolution.

His demonization of immigrants – at least immigrants of color. It obviously started with his 2015 trip down the escalator, calling Latin Americans “murders and rapists,” continued throughout his first term, further continued during the 2024 campaign with his reference to them as “vermin” – an epithet Adolf Hitler used about those he considered undesirable – and now with his Administration’s indiscriminate, terrorizing deportation activities. Undocumented immigrants are indeed criminals – they have entered the country in violation of our immigration laws, no matter how law abiding they’ve been since crossing our border — and what we do about them is a policy issue. But dehumanizing them for doing what anyone with courage should be willing to do if necessary to ensure a better life for his/her family — in practical terms what the forebears of every American citizen save Native Americans and those brought here in chains did do — is a malign act.

His bullying, self-dealing, and dividing Americans – in some cases, dividing families — for his own political gain. His actions in these regards are so well settled that, as lawyers sometimes say, they need no citation.

You could add others; I have limited my list to actions for which there is no reasonable doubt.

All that said, I have come to view Mr. Trump as a personal spiritual as well as temporal challenge. Throughout this note, I’ve referred to my antipathy for Mr. Trump’s actions. The very word, “antipathy,” is obviously a softer, ten-cent synonym for more provocative alternatives. In my faith, and I suspect in many faiths, we are taught that one can “hate the sin, not the sinner”; every day, millions of Christians ask the Almighty to “forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” — which one could argue amounts to those of less forgiving nature rotely giving a merciful God license to judge them more harshly than He (excuse the male pronoun for a genderless being) otherwise might. I don’t believe that I can wish ill upon another. Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Catholic, has said that she prays for Mr. Trump; he has mocked her for it. (I must sheepishly admit that Ms. Pelosi has greater faith than I do; although all things are possible with God, unless we can get Mr. Trump on a horse on the road to Damascus, I see little prospect that he will change his ways. 😉 ) I can’t claim to have said many prayers for the President, but I am focusing my antipathy on his behaviors.

For the sake of my soul, as I fast forward by his lies, rants and inanities, I hope I’m succeeding.

We’ll soon get back to regular programming. Stay well. 🙂

Considering the First 100 Days … and the Next 200

Let’s join the chorus and take a look at President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office (I’m confident that you’ve been able to maintain a steady pulse despite my delay 😉 ).

Let’s start with foreign policy.

Since Mr. Trump returned to office, pundits have repeatedly intoned that Mr. Trump’s grotesquely destructive behavior on so many fronts is diminishing our allies’ confidence in America. I beg to differ with these optimists: Mr. Trump’s actions over his first one hundred days in office have destroyed our allies’ confidence in America. I do not believe that America now holds nor for the rest of my Medicare-aged lifetime will hold the esteem of free peoples or the standing on the world stage that it has held for over a century. While any student of foreign affairs is well aware that America has always – as it should – looked out for itself, there is likewise no question that this country has done more good for more people than any other nation in history. Now, we’re just another country. Mr. Trump made clear during the 2024 campaign what he intended to do if reelected (which our allies correctly understood to mean that he intended to turn his back on them). (There will be no mention of Ukraine here, which I defer to a separate future note.) For the remainder of my lifetime, our allies will set their own course. (One need look no further for confirmation than the recent Canadian and Australian national election results, clear repudiations of Mr. Trump.) I concede that if we ever regain our democratic footing, there may be advantages to this shift that a shrewd president might be able to exploit, but we will still be maneuvering in a literally new world.

One can make a credible argument that it is not Mr. Trump, but the majority of American voters who have turned their back on the world; after all, they elected him. That said, I am reminded of an observation made to me by a colleague years ago: “You value what you know.” Citizens of the European democracies have lived with the threat of brutal aggression from the east – Germany, then the USSR, now Russia – for over a century. The threat is engrained in the psyches of Western Europeans. No matter how bad economic times get, a Western European knows that there are greater terrors. Americans have never experienced brutal political subjugation, or felt it close at hand; the Western European’s visceral political fears are not part of our DNA. These Americans naturally focus on the challenges that are real to them. Those who feel that they have been deprived of their share of the American Dream are more interested in disrupting a system that they believe – in some cases, correctly; in other cases, perhaps not — hasn’t given them sufficient opportunity. They seemingly don’t have much conception of what the overall consequences of that disruption might be, or that tyranny could be the result here or elsewhere; those fears don’t compute. (Sadly, I suspect that such is now computing for some Latino Trump voters.) While these Americans’ focus may be understandable, it is just as understandable that their priorities might be considered shallow by Western Europeans who recognize that Mr. Trump’s obvious autocratic sympathies literally endanger their freedom.

On to the home front.

Despite Mr. Trump’s and his MAGA zealots’ repeated claims that Mr. Trump received a “mandate” in the last election, I am confident that they recognize that only half the country supports him on his best day, and that given the American cultural dynamic, they are employing the Nazi model of the 1930s to quickly consolidate their control to reshape America to their vision – an American Apartheid – rather than follow the approach of gradually undermining democracy more recently adopted by Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Erdoğan in Turkey and Viktor Orbán in Hungary. They have accordingly fashioned an Administration consisting almost entirely of previously-identified true believers. They have moved aggressively to silence, intimidate and quell voices that oppose them and institutions that facilitate critical thought (e.g., the Smithsonian); they understand that the more Americans hear only MAGA propaganda, the greater the percentage of Americans who will come to believe it.

Akin to my frustration with foreign policy commentators who imply that America has not already lost its unique standing in the world is my exasperation with legal commentators who are debating whether, given the Trump Administration’s actions, we are merely approaching a Constitutional crisis, or we have reached it. Really? We have passed it. We need look no further than Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It doesn’t matter whether he’s a choir boy. An existing court order forbid his deportation to El Salvador; he was nonetheless deported to El Salvador by the Trump Administration; the United States Supreme Court has ordered the Trump Administration to “facilitate” his return; Mr. Trump has refused to do so. It has always been blatantly obvious – even before Mr. Trump recently acknowledged it in an interview – that El Salvador would return Mr. Abrego Garcia if Mr. Trump asked. Mr. Trump doesn’t care. Mr. Abrego Garcia still sits in El Salvador. The President clearly abides by no higher principle — and there is certainly no physical force — to make him do what he doesn’t want to do, or to prevent him from doing what he wants to do. Look up the definition of the word, “dictatorship,” and compare it to the behavior we’ve seen in the last 100 days. Ask yourself whether the fact that the Trump Administration hasn’t yet wielded its power against some of its perceived adversaries doesn’t mean it won’t, or doesn’t feel it can.

Let’s move on to tariffs, from a different perspective than expressed in a recent post. TLOML spent most of her career in rehabilitation services, which often serve the needs of relatively-older individuals. Years ago, she made an observation certainly proving true in my case: that it is a myth that one’s less desirable characteristics soften as one ages; that in fact, as one ages, it becomes more difficult to temper one’s regrettable tendencies. In her introduction to Fascism: A Warning, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted, “[Mr. Trump] conceives of the world as a battlefield in which every country is intent on dominating every other; where nations compete like real estate developers to ruin rivals and squeeze every penny of profit out of deals. Given his life experience, one can see how Trump might think that way ….” Although I am reluctant to tread on the territory of two learned psychologists who read these notes, I will nonetheless venture that I think Mr. Trump is regressing to his core. He will turn 79 this year. He has believed in tariffs for the last 40 years, has focused on them throughout his public career, and has ignored all sound economic advice regarding their overall efficacy. His recent comment about American children having to make do with “two dolls instead of thirty dolls” and that “maybe” the two dolls “will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally …” demonstrated an uncharacteristic political obliviousness; one of his political strengths has been a savviness about “ordinary” Americans’ sentiments. As he redecorates the Oval Office in gold, he seems blithefully unconcerned that the voter segment that put him over the top in 2024 due to inflationary fears will desert him if tariffs either increase inflation or cause a recession. It is obviously hard to judge the mental degradation of a figure who has acted so outrageously throughout his political career, but one can credibly wonder whether the President of the Unites States himself isn’t … losing it — a scary thought with over 1,300 days left in his term. (For those that might feel glee at the possibility of Mr. Trump’s divestiture due to infirmity, I would caution: Watch out what you wish for. I actually consider the notion of Vice President J.D. Vance succeeding Mr. Trump an even more alarming prospect than Mr. Trump himself, with a rationale best expressed if at all in a separate post.)

So what’s the 100 Day Scorecard? That in such a short period of time, the amount of destruction that Mr. Trump has wreaked on the American way of life and the level of additional enmity he has reaped are both truly remarkable. I would wager that if the presidential election was rerun tomorrow, Mr. Trump would lose the popular vote (if not the Electoral College) to former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Obviously, the election won’t be rerun tomorrow. So what happens during the next 200 days, the period that will end about a year before the 2026 midterm elections?

If Mr. Trump’s tariffs do indeed cause product shortages, increase inflation, and/or cause a recession, or the DOGE-driven federal layoffs adversely affect service levels for programs Americans rely upon (Elon Musk has proven to be as inept as he is dastardly), or the Republicans cut Medicaid or Veterans benefits (received by many Trump voters), there will be a ferocious response. The resistance of those who have heretofore opposed MAGA aims will coalesce with the outrage of the pivotal segment of Trump voters who will feel betrayed. Although Mr. Trump is already trying to blame any future economic woes on former President Joe Biden, polls indicate that all but the most gullible MAGAs will hold Mr. Trump responsible. Anti-Administration rallies and demonstrations – already begun in at least our part of the country – will grow and intensify. It seems likely that the next 200 days will heavily influence the 2026 midterms and it also seems probable, given Republicans’ extremely thin margin in the House of Representatives and historical precedent, that Democrats will take control of the House if there are free and fair elections in 2026. In normal times, this would largely strangle the last two years of the second Trump term.

These aren’t normal times. I’ve previously mentioned here a maxim I employed during my career: when setting strategy, assume that the other side is at least as bright as you are, and knows at least as much as you do about the matters at hand. If one applies that approach to this context, it seems reasonable to assume that Mr. Trump and his MAGAs understand that their ability to maintain an American Apartheid will depend upon their willingness to manipulate and exceed the boundaries of American law. (This past weekend, the President indicated that he didn’t know if he had to enforce the Constitution. Someone should tell him – not that he would care — that he has taken an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”) Although the Trump Administration currently appears to be primarily identifying those it considers undesirable by ethnicity and immigration status, at bottom Mr. Trump and MAGAs consider all who oppose them, regardless of ethnicity, sexual preference, religious persuasion, or citizenship status, to be undesirables. One can anticipate that Republicans will seek to pass laws and Mr. Trump will issue Executive Orders which limit the participation of likely Democratic voters. One can anticipate that ICE will make clear that it will be standing near polling places with heavy Latino populations, purportedly to ensure that no “illegals” vote, but in fact to intimidate American Latino citizens from voting, so as to avoid being “accidentally” swept up in an ICE raid. One can anticipate that if anti-Administration rallies and demonstrations become sufficiently vocal and widespread – even if peaceful — the Administration will invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy armed federal troops against demonstrators. One can anticipate that if the Trump Administration believes that Republicans are going to experience significant reversals in the midterms, Mr. Trump will at least consider declaring Martial Law and suspending elections, although no such presidential power is set forth in the Constitution.

So what do we do? Since Mr. Trump took office I have at times reflected about my father, a decorated WWII Marine veteran of Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal who enlisted immediately after Pearl Harbor, willing to give his life to defend his country. Aside from paying taxes – to which I’ve always considered it churlish to object, given the opportunities this nation provides — I’ve had to do virtually nothing to avail myself of the blessings of American citizenship. I’ve recently been devoting significantly more time to meetings, rallies and demonstrations expressing opposition to what the Trump Administration is doing to our country. (Since I don’t speak Spanish, I can’t exactly interpret about half of the chants at some rallies; but as I listen, I’m acutely aware – even if many Trump supporters appear to have forgotten – that at past points in our history, similar cries for freedom and peaceful opportunities were undoubtedly expressed in German, Italian, Polish, and a myriad of other languages; if alive then, as an Irish Papist I wouldn’t have known their words, but I would have understood them, too.) I’m not sure whether these activities have any impact other than to show others participating that they’re not alone, but showing up has been something I can do.

What you wish or are able to do — if anything — is up to you; everyone’s life circumstances are unique. But if you’re feeling safe because you don’t fit the current profile of those being targeted by MAGAs, get over it, my friend. If you’ve read this far, you’re probably not Mr. Trump’s biggest fan. In this digital age, he knows it. If tomorrow the Trump Administration changes focus, authorities under the President’s command decide to pick you and me up, and they ultimately plunk us down in Alcatraz (which Mr. Trump wants to reopen as a prison 😉 ), who’s going to stop them?

We’ll see what happens.

On the Trump Tariffs

One of the benefits of these pages is that it keeps us in closer contact with the friends that read the notes than might otherwise be the case. Since a significant period of time has lapsed since the last post, some of these friends have recently very thoughtfully reached out to inquire whether we’re doing okay. Except for being a little bit poorer than we were at the start of the year due to the financial markets’ gyrations – a condition that we share with a large swath of Americans 😉 — we’re doing fine. The span between posts is attributable to both our need to attend to certain family matters and to the fact that having delivered several numbingly-long posts after the election, first describing what would happen when President Donald Trump returned to the White House and then decrying what has, completely predictably, transpired since he reassumed the presidency, I have seen little purpose to either boring you or further agitating you by telling you what you already know.

That said, although a post on the ways Mr. Trump is effecting his assault on our democratic republic and individual American liberties is in the offing, this note of impressions addresses perhaps the most benign of the manners (because they don’t, per se, affect our democratic processes or individual rights) in which Mr. Trump has wreaked havoc upon us since assuming the presidency: the President’s tariff policies. I have noted several times in these pages that Mr. Trump wants to take America back to the 1950s; a comment I heard from a pundit at some point in the last couple of months made me realize I’ve been wrong: Mr. Trump actually wishes to take us back to the 1920s. It is difficult to capture all of the ways in which the Trump tariff policies – to the extent they can be discerned – are ill-conceived; but here’s a try.

The Erraticism. Businesspeople are like major league hitters: they can adjust to a tight or wide strike zone (regulatory scheme); but they need the umpire to maintain a consistent strike zone. Mr. Trump’s erratic policies – one day on, one day off; uncertain delays; willy-nilly exceptions; playing favorites; capricious, completely in his head – are exhausting. They are causing American businesses across the board to reduce their projections for this year. Mr. Trump may find that the recession he is inducing follows the well-known maxim about wars: easy to start, hard to stop. (An aside: some financial pundits have expressed sympathy for U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s obvious discomfort at trying to rationalize Mr. Trump’s irrational tariff spasms. Mr. Bessent was respected as a professionally competent, steady figure by U.S. markets when he assumed his post. I have no sympathy for Mr. Bessent. Any professionally competent, steady figure who watched Mr. Trump’s disregard of the advice of the professionally competent, steady figures who joined his first Administration, and nonetheless agreed to become part of the second Trump Administration, is a damn fool.)

Faux Revenue Enhancement. The Administration’s claims that tariffs will increase government revenues without appreciable inflation are being debunked by about every reputable economist I have heard comment. Whatever the government receives in tariff revenues will be offset by a slowing economy that results in lower individual and business income tax revenues. I don’t think any 2024 Trump voters angered by inflation who lose their jobs because their employers had to cut costs or their employers’ customers bought less of a higher-priced product will consider it a good trade even if a recession cools inflation – a cooling which those of us with longer memories are aware is by no means a certainty (see, “1970s stagflation”).

Preventing Illegal Drug Importation. Let’s put Canada aside – the BBC recently reported that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol data indicates that only about 0.2% of all seizures of fentanyl entering the U.S. are made at the Canadian border (there may be more fentanyl entering Canada from the U.S. than the other way around) — and focus on illegal importation of illegal drugs through our southern border. While the stated objective is obviously vital and one to which America should devote its law enforcement resources, the cartels in the countries in which illegal drug manufacture and export are major industries can bring more pressure to bear on their governments than Mr. Trump can hope to apply through tariffs. This Administration rationale is a makeweight.

Reshoring American Manufacturing. Again, while the stated goal sounds good – and is good, in certain strategic areas such as advanced chip production and medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing – anybody with an IQ of 2 should recognize that America cannot meaningfully reverse four decades of manufacturing offshoring in months, or even in a few years. I would submit that those Americans who voted for Mr. Trump with visions of the golden pot of jobs at the end of the rainbow cannot help but be sorely disappointed. Any meaningful transition of manufacturing back to America – assuming such ever occurs – will take longer than the working lives of many Trump voters; the workers ultimately needed to operate any such reestablished factories will require sophisticated training from an educational system that the Trump Administration is currently gutting; the returning factories might well be placed near educational and urban centers, where relatively fewer Trump voters reside; what such reshoring will provide Trump voters who have been ravaged by inflation are relatively higher-priced goods created by workers paid more than their international counterparts; and – the cruelest irony of all for those envisioning the pot of gold — these new factories are likely to be so automated that they will provide few employment opportunities for the relatively small segment of 2024 Trump voters who will still be young and educable enough to benefit from any concerted, decades-long reshoring effort.

The President’s Gross Misreading of the Political Leaders He Confronts. I made this comment about Mr. Trump during his first term, and it obviously remains true today: he thinks like a businessman, not a political leader. Businesspeople think in terms of money – what is the best achievable financial deal. If one contracting commercial party has greater leverage than the other, the weaker party will bend to make the best economic arrangement it can. Political leaders think in terms of power and image. (One cannot maintain power without projecting a certain image – what the Asians refer to as, “face.”) The difference in perspective is crucial. Mr. Trump believes that because he (America) is big and other countries are littler, he can dictate to these smaller nations in the way he shorted the tradespeople who worked on his New York buildings in the last century. I don’t think he can. Political leaders don’t think that way. Take any number of the most formidable international leaders of the modern era – both American Roosevelts, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Putin, Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping; I would venture that required to make a stark choice between retaining their power and living in a cave, or ceding their power and living the remainder of their days in a luxurious palace, all would opt to retain the power and live in the cave. Mr. Trump would choose the palace. I don’t care how small one’s country is; one doesn’t become the leader of a nation – there are only 195 of them, out of a world population of over 8 billion people — without a significant amount of pride and chutzpah. I would suggest that Mr. Trump has been so blatantly offensive in his approach that any political leader can take a stand against America’s tariffs and will be able to credibly claim to his/her people for at least a year that any hardship they’re suffering is America’s fault.

Of course, Mr. Xi is a special case. One doesn’t become and remain the leader of the People’s Republic of China, the visceral heir to Chairman Mao and the most powerful autocrat in the world, by being a namby-pamby. He is not going to buckle because Mr. Trump says boo; he can’t afford to look weak, lest he encourage ambitions in the minds of some of his less-supportive Politburo members. Some have suggested that since America is the larger economy, it holds the upper hand in any trade war with China. I’m not so sure. I have seen reported that China’s top 2023 imports from the U.S. were oilseeds, grains, oil and gas — vital to the (relatively pro-Trump) energy and farming sectors of our economy, but available from other nations like Brazil and Russia. As all who care are aware, China has recently responded to Mr. Trump’s tariffs by restricting its exports of rare earth minerals, which are integral in the manufacture of a raft of items from military equipment to semiconductor chips to smartphones, and cannot be acquired elsewhere. Certainly, America has cards to play; at the same time, our relative economic size may not be that big an advantage when dealing with an autocratic government which can be less concerned about its people’s sentiment and can quell any unrest not only by force but by being able to justifiably blame America for the economic disruption that has caused their discomfort.

Political Ramifications. If you believe – I don’t, but such is a point best elaborated upon in a subsequent post alluded to above – that the Trump Administration intends to allow free and fair elections in 2026 and 2028, Mr. Trump’s tariff policies are an egregiously stupid political blunder, as they are seemingly likely to cause a recession that will cost jobs, fuel inflation – arguably the issue that provided him his 1.5% margin over Vice President Kamala Harris last November – and invite devastating retaliation by our allies and enemies alike against American economic sectors heretofore very supportive of him. I would submit that the Administration’s message, essentially, “Americans must absorb some short-term pain for long term gain,” won’t sell in an environment in which the American economy was humming when Mr. Trump took office, and there is no evident outside threat – such as Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or COVID – for which Americans have been traditionally willing to sacrifice. Although Mr. Trump occasionally refers to Abraham Lincoln, he obviously has no idea what Mr. Lincoln actually said during his lifetime; if he did, he might do well to recall Mr. Lincoln’s remarks to the Washington Temperance Society of Springfield, Illinois, on February 22, 1842:

“Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorise [sic] on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think, we are, at the same time, doing something for ourselves. What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit, to ask or expect a whole community to rise up and labor for the temporal happiness of others after themselves shall be consigned to the dust …. Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, much less in the cases of others. [Emphasis Mr. Lincoln’s].”

Losing the Forest for the Trees. What I consider the most damning indictment of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies saved for last. I have heard a number of competent experts opine that Mr. Trump is correct when he claims that other nations haven’t always been “fair” to us in their trade practices. Through his tariff initiatives, Mr. Trump is seemingly seeking to “right” these perceived “wrongs.” I would argue that at this point in history, his approach, on the whole, is absurd. We have been the winners. I completely agree that China, which has taken advantage of us for decades through trade and currency manipulation and stealing our intellectual property, is a geopolitical and economic rival that must be dealt with differently and more aggressively, particularly in areas affecting our national security. I also agree that American Administrations in the last quarter of the last century should have been more cognizant of how manufacturing offshoring and our trade arrangements were going to adversely affect the American factory worker, and implemented tax incentives and development programs to counteract those effects. That said, as of the day Mr. Trump reassumed the presidency, America had the largest and best economy in the world, the envy of every other nation. Assuming that other countries have indeed technically taken trade advantage of us over the years, it was obviously of no account; it has been America that has grown ever economically stronger. Here, I admit to being influenced by my own experience. I recall the practices of the insurance company that I, and several of those who read these notes, served for decades; for most of our time there, our organization – contrary to the cliché – maintained a very generous claims approach toward the niche market it served. When one joined the Company, one was puzzled why the Company frequently paid claims that it arguably could have legally denied or limited under regulator-approved policy language. Then, as the years passed, one came to recognize – as the Company consistently grew – that its success was because its market rewarded it with loyalty, embraced new service offerings, and provided it a stream of ever-increasing revenue. Other providers serving the same niche customers in other capacities that hewed to the terms of their agreements — limiting their obligations where they legally could — ultimately lost customer share and departed the marketplace. We got bigger. We got stronger.

Mr. Trump, consumed with petty vindictiveness, simply doesn’t get how America prospered, how it achieved the strength he seeks to exploit by focusing on the forest rather than the trees. Such is beyond his compass. Perhaps at some point, if faced with a slowing economy, he will suddenly make some transparently face-saving declaration that will be gobbled up by his willingly-gullible supporters, and – perhaps save tariffs on China – return to essentially where we were on his “Liberation Day.” If such occurs, all that will have been achieved through his aberrant machinations – assuming a recession is avoided — is to have alienated an entire world. We are where we are, and we will be where we will be.

You’ve long since decided that you didn’t mind that period with less Noise 😉 . Stay well.

What Will Be, Will Be: Redux

Something you and I absolutely agree upon: I’m not that smart. However, this post is entered in shocked reaction to a comment by MSNBC’s Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough today, to the effect that legislators and financiers with whom Mr. Scarborough talks are stunned that President Donald Trump is actually doing … exactly what he said he was going to do during the campaign — now augmented by hints that Mr. Trump and Elon Musk are considering doing what Mr. Trump has always said he wouldn’t do: tamper with Social Security and Medicare. What follows are excerpts (all italics appeared in the original) from a post entitled, “What Will Be, Will Be,” entered in these pages six days after Mr. Trump’s election. (If you care, scroll down to fill in the portions I’ve omitted here.)

“‘Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.’

Abraham Lincoln, January 27, 1838

…

I have always thought that the American presidency called for a fundamentally good person who was willing to take morally questionable actions to achieve a greater good. It is clear that many Americans are willing to abide a man whom even a large share of his supporters concede is amoral in hopes that he will do good things. [I am particularly struck by those Evangelicals who admit that they wouldn’t want Mr. Trump as a pastor but can abide him as president. Granting that the Bible can be cited for just about anything anyone wants, one cannot help but pause at the seeming … let’s say, incongruity … that any such literalist Christians so readily disregarded Matthew 7: 17-18: ‘Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears rotten fruit. A good tree cannot bear rotten fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.’] It is what it is.

What comes next?

…

Over the next four years, I expect: that Mr. Trump – already exhausted and mentally degrading – to become a figurehead for a radical reformation of our federal government by Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance, Donald Trump, Jr., and the MAGA zealots who have put together Project 2025; that all criminal charges now adjudged or pending against Mr. Trump will be dispensed with; that all of the convicted January 6^th rioters will be pardoned; that many of Mr. Trump’s most prominent political and media critics will be prosecuted by the Trump Justice Department on trumped up (if you will 😉 ) charges … or otherwise pressured into submission; that MAGAs will pass measures that in fact if not in name will serve to disenfranchise Democratic-leaning constituencies; that many legal as well as illegal immigrants will be swept up in the Administration’s deportation initiatives; that MAGA-sympathetic generals will be appointed to lead the American military, and that at some point under their direction our armed forces will take action against peaceful American citizen demonstrators; that violence will increase against African Americans, legal immigrants of color, non-Christians, and Americans with untraditional gender and sexual preferences; that NATO will remain in name, but will have severely reduced effectiveness as America substantially limits its participation; that Russia will absorb at least Ukraine and possibly a number of NATO countries formerly members of the USSR; that Mr. Trump and his cohort will continue their approach of division and distraction; … and that — the bitterest irony of all — the gap between the American rich and those poor who consider Mr. Trump their Messiah will continue to widen. (The cruelest joke will be that because of alt-right propaganda, most are likely not to even realize that Mr. Trump did nothing for them.)

…

If Mr. Trump and his minions actually effect the tariffs and tax cuts for which he’s advocated and bend securities laws to favor powerful oligarchs like Elon Musk, it doesn’t take an economics degree to predict that inflation, the deficit, and accordingly interest rates will soar and the stock market will drop; if they effect the mass deportations of illegal aliens he has promised, certain sectors of our economy dependent on illegal labor will crater, materially adversely affecting the entire economy; and that if they obtain the control over the Federal Reserve Mr. Trump seeks, global confidence in the dollar will plummet along with its value and hasten its abandonment as the world’s reserve currency.

For clues as to whether the MAGA Administration will be willing, contrary to my deepest misgivings, to allow for a free and fair 2028 election, an early indication will be how the Administration approaches issues that do matter to Trump voters. Ones coming to mind are the conservative shibboleths of a nationwide abortion ban, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts (there are a lot of Trump voters who benefit from Medicaid), and repeal of the now-popular Affordable Care Act without an essentially-like replacement. In these areas, Mr. Trump, even in his obviously mentally and emotionally degraded state, is cannier than his doctrinaire followers. If he or his MAGA cohort truly intend to subject their hold on power to the free will of all American citizens in 2028, they will abstain from any actions that they know will outrage their base. A more ominous indicator of any anti-democratic intentions they may harbor will arise, if at all, after the 2026 mid-terms, if MAGA propaganda starts to stoke unfounded fears of civil unrest or insurrection.”

I apologize for taking your time with an unplanned vent, particularly one which is little more than a repeat of what has already been entered here (although surrendering to such impulses is one of the perks of a site like this 😉 ). I am just having trouble grasping that the supposed sophisticates Mr. Scarborough referred to couldn’t see coming what was as plain as the noses on their faces. I hope to post an entry in the not-too-distant future regarding the condition our traditional guardrails – those destroyed, and those remaining. Keep your seatbelt on.

Я українець

kennedy youtube i am a berliner – Google Search

By this time, all who care have seen part or all of the bitter exchange that occurred in the White House Oval Office on February 28^th between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. To state what was blatantly obvious from the moment it was clear that Mr. Trump was reclaiming the presidency: America is going to abandon Ukraine to Russia. The minerals deal is equal parts transparent ruse and cruel prank. In my lifetime, our nation has made foreign policy blunders which have yielded terrible consequences, but as far as I am aware, each was undertaken by the given President, no matter how mistakenly, with the intent of protecting Americans’ freedom and that of others around the world. What the Trump Administration is doing to Ukraine is akin to taking the side of a brutal rapist and demanding to be thanked by the victim.

I don’t know Ukrainian, and thus am relying on Google to have translated accurately, that the Ukranian phrase I have cut and pasted here reflects my intent; but I am confident President John Kennedy wouldn’t mind my paraphrasing and embracing his imagery from over sixty years ago when I declare that all free people, wherever they may live, are citizens of Ukraine. And therefore, as an American citizen living in America and as – at least, as yet — a free man, I take pride in entering here, “Я українець.”